Saturday, 7 May 2016

Oh Hello 31 day drawing challenge...

At first glance you'd be forgiven for thinking Oh Hello Stationery Co is just another shop that designs, makes and sells planner stickers. But on deeper scrutiny you realise. that even with the addition of washi, Darice books and own design house goods, Kayla and Alex are much more than shopkeepers. Having set up the 'Helloigans' community on facebook including the sticker drawing challenge, and more recently the Blogging Wolf Pack, it's fairly obvious these guys are entrepreneurs with a whole lot of fun.

They blog and vlog, make 'how to' videos, instagram, periscope and stream. I kinda believe they've gotten hold of Professor McGonagall's time turner because I'm attempting to do a blog-a-day for the month of May and that's taking pretty much all of my time. A time-turner, a time portal, a close bond with Dr.Who or else they're very very well organised.

1. Draw a flower 2.Draw a cat

3. Draw a shark 4. Draw happiness

So when they brought out the 'Draw a' set of stickers and announced in September 2015 a 31 Day Drawing Challenge I jumped at the opportunity. There are times when the onus upon an artist to come up with new ideas can be wearying. Being provided with a list of triggers is a great way to produce a series.

5. Draw a landscape 6. Draw a lion

7. Draw a future 8. Draw a face

I used a simple sketchbook from Ikea, removed the binding and drew on the pages even though they were punched at the left hand side. Nice quality smooth cream paper. I ignored the holes - these were not going to be framed artworks but an exercise in quick drawing. For the length of the challenge I drew freehand, without pencil work.

9. Draw a pattern 10. Draw a critter

11. Draw a boat 12. Draw a sea

As a rule I don't use my Copics or ProMarkers for challenges so this task was a good excuse to go and buy lots of Sharpies to try out. (I've a blog post 'Pens, pencils and paper' that covers my thoughts on these). Neons, fine points and limited editions of more unusual shades, the more variety of colours the more scope I would have to play with.

13. Draw a jungle 14. Draw a shadow

15. Draw a forest 16. Draw an idea

Some of the triggers were pretty straightforward such as '1. Draw a flower' and '23. Draw an airplane' but I played around with other triggers such as drawing a white tiger (no 26.) and a fire sprite (no.28). The sticker prompts were simplistic enough to allow the person taking up the challenge to have free rein in their interpretation.

17. Draw a card 18. Draw a friend

19. Draw smoke 20. Draw the 90s

My favourites from the month are '14. Draw a shadow', '18. Draw a friend' and '30. Draw a rocket'. The shadow hints at my likeness for other worlds and science fiction plus I like the angle that not all is what it appears. The friend is our dog Shadow, an unholy union between a Cairns terrier and an Akita (we think) - he was adopted from a rescue centre and is a great source of love and humour. The rocket came from thoughts of Wallace and Gromit who headed off to the moon to stock up on cheese in a wonderful homemade ship.

21. Draw Summer 22. Draw cold

23. Draw an airplane 24. Draw sea creatures

The trigger I liked the least was the airplane just because I didn't have much interest in drawing it and I found it difficult to put a spin on the obvious image bar making it a biplane. I found the 90s the most difficult as I was an adult back then, it was a decade before my son was born and I just didn't have clear and interesting images from that time (yup, the 90s were a trying decade!). After googling 'the 90s' I choose some toys from the images of that period.

25. Draw a dinosaur 26. Draw a donut

27. Draw a monster 28. Draw a fire

Some ideas I'd already drawn as artworks and adapted them for the challenge had still been fresh in my head. I do a lot of fantasy/sci fi styled themes and enjoyed '8. Draw a face', '15. Draw a forest' and '27. Draw a monster'.

29. Draw fast 30. Draw a rocket

31. Draw anything(Kayla, Alex & Tardis the puddycat)

Regardless of the type of challenge I undertake I get something from it. Completing this challenge gee-d me up to do further work. The images drawn from the sticker-triggers may not seem worthy of 'art' but they served a purpose. Taking the time to draw each day in itself encouraged commitment. Each month or two I seek out a new challenge either in art or writing. This month my blog-a-day is going well so far...7 days on and counting.

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About Me

Hi there and welcome to my arty blog. I'm a visual artist with a disability who is a board member of charity University of Atypical. I aim to post something once a week - usually art related but often about my other interests too...and I do like an art challenge! Thanks for stopping by..